Appendix to Session 7 | The issue of ‘humility’

Before we continue to complete chapter 4, we need to reflect on David’s question from last week regarding how to become humble. 

I didn’t answer the question very well at the time so have done some research to deal with the issue more thoroughly. Here are some comments that may help:

Ken Sande  Approachability: The Passport to Real Ministry and Leadership.

“One of the many evidences of actual humility is the inclination to “consider others better than yourself,” which results in valuing their thoughts and interests as highly as your own (Phil. 2:3-4). A closely related evidence of humility is to sincerely welcome critique and correction, no matter who brings the “observation” (Prov. 13:10, 17:10). Therefore, wise leaders regularly meditate and pray about the “pride and humility” passages in Scripture (see Prov. 11:2, 19:20; Isa. 66:3; 1 Pet. 5:5-6), asking God to help them put off self-confidence, pride, and every hint of arrogance, and to put on a humility that genuinely welcomes questions, suggestions, criticism, and anything else that might aid us in the process of presenting ourselves before God as empty vessels, so that we might be utterly dependent on and fulfilled in him, which is the essence of true humility.

Erik Raymond on Humility

One thing we can be sure of is that we all need to work on humility. It is an amazing thing to know that whoever reads these words, in varying degrees, is prideful. So how do we grow in humility? What is the path from pride to humility?

Humility comes from seeing God’s bigness and out badness.

In order to work on it we should know what it is. I’ve heard some define humility as rightly responding to who God is. I think this is a good start but we need to go further. We also need to rightly know who we are. These go together of course, because we cannot rightly know ourselves until we come to some biblical understanding of who God is. I like the answer given in the New City Catechism to the question “What is God?”

“God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and perfection, goodness and glory, wisdom, justice, and truth. Nothing happens except through him and by his will.”

There has never been time that God could not say “I am” and in saying it he could say that “I am, perfectly holy, good, just, and loving.” Therefore he is worthy of all worship.

Man on the other hand, while created with dignity and upright, fell in sin. Rebelling against God, we have earned wrath, separation, and ruin. You might say when you see God’s bigness and see your badness then you may be truly humbled.

Humility comes from fasting from self

How do we get there? C.S. Lewis helpfully wrote in Mere Christianity that, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

The tendency to be preoccupied with ourselves is a sure sign of pride. A heart inverted upon itself is sure to cultivate suffocating pride. It expresses itself in a fixation on ourselves. This selfishness is expressed in terms of worry, anxiety, thin skin, gossip, slander, lying, being afraid of what others think of you, laziness, being a workaholic, harshness, and a relentless clinging to your rights (just to name a few). In short it is a preoccupation with gratifying the flesh.

Lewis is encouraging humility by throwing away the broken compass that always leads us inward to the heart, the den of self.

But is this all? Do I just need to start thinking of myself less? This is a good start, but, I think there is more.

Humility comes not just fasting from self but feasting on Christ.

Remember the gospel. God, being rich and mercy, has sent Christ to be the sin-bearing, life-giving Saviour. By his doing and dying we are saved from God’s wrath and given new life as adopted children (Eph. 1: 3-14; 2:1-10).

The Bible, and particularly the gospel, then gives us the proper perspective on God and us. When we see who God is and who we are then we are properly humbled before him.

Thus though a sinner, I am safe,
He pleads before the throne
His life and death in my behalf,
And calls my sins His own

(Great God from Thee)

When the Apostle Paul wants to unfasten the Philippians’ kung-fu grip upon the mirror where they are gazing upon themselves, he writes,

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3)

Pretty simple verse. Do nothing from selfish ambition. Got it. But how do I learn this humility?

In short Paul says, feast on Christ. In the following verses he backs up the semi-truck of Christ’s infinite merit and dumps it on the front porch of the Philippian church. There it is brothers and sisters.

When he shows us the depths of Christ’s humble service (Phil. 2:6-8) he quickly shows us that no one could ever give up more to serve more unworthy people. We are the ones who have been served therefore we are to likewise serve in this humility.

When we sit in the shadow of the cross we learn that nothing is beneath us in terms of service. We have been served by Christ in this glorious way–he laid down his life for us! We then need to walk in humility, which is, at its core, what it means to follow Jesus.

If you want to learn humility, by all means, get your pride crushed by the Law of God. Do it. Do it often. When you see God as you ought then you will see yourself as you ought. This will certainly help with thinking of yourself less. But, please, don’t stop there, keep going. Treasure Christ. Delight in his doing and dying for you. Feast on Christ as you fast from self.

Gospel Humility  Justin Taylor 

 

 From a new sermon by John Piper on humility, what it is and does:

1. Humility is glad that God gets all the credit for choosing us so that we boast only in him and not man.
2. Humility happily admits that everything we have is a free gift from God, so that we can’t boast in it.
3. Humility is glad to affirm that God sovereignly governs our heartbeats and safe arrivals, or non-arrivals.
4. The root of Christian humility is the gospel that Christ died for our sins. That’s how sinful I was. That’s how dependent I am.
5. Humility gives itself away in serving everyone, rather than seeking to be served.
6. And humility is glad to affirm that this service is true greatness.

He also answers three worldly objections to humility:

1. Humility makes a person gloomy, dismal, downcast, unhappy
2. Humility makes you fearful and timid
3. Humility makes you passive and removes the driving motor of achievement

I especially appreciated this quote:

Gospel humility frees you from the need to posture and pose and calculate what others think, so that you are free to laugh at what is really funny with the biggest belly laugh. Proud people don’t really let themselves go in laughter. They don’t get red in the face and fall off chairs and twist their faces into the contortions of real free laughter. Proud people need to keep their dignity. The humble are free to howl with laughter.

CJ Mahaney on Humility

“What Is Humility? Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.

That’s the twin reality that all genuine humility is rooted in: God’s holiness and our sinfulness. Without an honest awareness of both these realities . . . all self-evaluation will be skewed and we’ll fail to either understand or practice true humility.”

C.S Lewis, Letter to Bede Griffiths (April 16, 1940)

“A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness, and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.”

Andrew Murray. Meditation on humility from Humility: The Beauty of Holiness 

And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil! It was when the now-fallen angels began to look upon themselves with self-complacency that they were led to disobedience, and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness. Even so it was, when the Serpent breathed the poison of his pride–the desire to be as God–into the hearts of our first parents, they too fell from their high estate into all the wretchedness into which man is sunk. In heaven and earth, pride–self-exaltation–is the gate and the birth, and the curse, of hell.

Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption but the restoration of the lost humility, the original and only true relation of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him, He brought it, from there. Here on earth “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death”; His humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption.

And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit–His own humility–as the ground and root of His relation to God and His redeeming work. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life of perfect humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.

And so the life of the saved ones, of the saints, must needs bear this stamp of deliverance from sin and full restoration to their original state–their whole relation to God and man marked by an all-pervading humility. Without this there can be no true abiding in God’s presence, or experience of His favour and the power of His Spirit; without this, no abiding faith, or love or joy or strength. Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others as it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him as God to do all.

 

Derek Rishmawy  on Humility

 

 Humility does the hard work of actually listening to others. What’s more, humility teaches us to question ourselves. Martin Luther wasn’t afraid of calling out the self-serving interpretations of the medieval indulgence-sellers and pretensions of papal power. Yet he wisely said, “I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.” 

We need not worry that such humility merely invites Christians to go soft on sound doctrine. Because true humility also requires us to test every argument, our own and those of our conversation partners, against the Word of God.

A Harvard Lesson in Humility by Kevin DeYoung 

 

 William Stuntz, 52, is an accomplished, highly regarded professor at Harvard Law School. He is also a Christian (he attends Park Street Church, Boston) who speaks very honestly and winsomely about his Christian faith.

And one other thing about Stuntz: he is dying from cancer.

There’s a lot that can be said about Stuntz, but I was struck by “one of his famous phrases” as reported in a recent article about him. The phrase is this: “I hadn’t thought of that.”

One of Stuntz’s former students reflects on the power of these simple words: “Think of how much he accomplishes with that one phrase in the classroom…Somehow, his students managed to come out of every conversation with him feeling like we were tenured Harvard professors, or could be, someday.”

I can’t recall when I’ve come across a more practical and challenging account of humility. Here’s a celebrated Harvard professor unafraid to admit to his young, inexperienced, less knowledgeable students that they could think of ideas he hadn’t thought of before. Count me convicted. How easily I can allow my congregation or my elders or my pastoral interns or my wife or my kids to keep on assuming that my knowledge of the Bible, of theology, of the Christian life in general is beyond tracing out.

Of course, they don’t really assume that. But any pastor or leader knows what I’m talking about. When you have a position of prestige or gifts of intellect, people make a habit of defaulting to your area of learning. And how comfortable we are to play the expert.

But if we’re honest (and why wouldn’t we be except for pride?), we don’t know it all. We aren’t models of everything. Even our youngest pupils will see things we haven’t seen before. So why not admit it?

What beautiful humility to utter that simple phrase: “I hadn’t thought of that.” It encourages others, may even inspire others, while also demonstrating a proper sense of our own finitude.

I’m grateful for William Stuntz, for his Christian faith, his vocation, and today, for his example of humility. I have much to learn and am glad to learn from others farther ahead in the race. I want to say “I hadn’t thought of that” more often, because, well, there are billions of things I’ve never thought of before. No sense in hiding the obvious. There’s only one Know-It-All in the universe, and he will not share his glory with another.

 

 

Charles Spurgeon on Humility

The best definition on humility I ever heard was this “to think rightly of ourselves. When you are half-an-inch above the ground you are that half-an-inch too high. Your place is to be nothing”

Three questions by

 

I like to be asked thought-provoking questions. However, in our busy lives it is difficult to take time to still our minds and follow Paul’s simple instruction to Timothy, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching” (1 Tim. 4:16). Jesus also instructed his disciples, “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down” (Luke 21:34). Three Questions is a series designed to put forth a few questions once a month. They can be used for personal reflection or perhaps as a way to spur on meaningful conversation in an accountability or small group.

January’s Theme: Humility

1. In what area are you most likely to struggle with humility? Where do you tend to judge other people the most? In what ways are you overly self-focused, either with anxiety, pride, insecurity, self-promotion, or worry?

2. Are you willing to listen to Biblical instruction and correction? Is there any area in your life where you insist on going your own way and are unwilling to walk in humble obedience to the Lord? What in your life is competing with obedience to God or the duties He has given you?

3. Philippians 2:3 encourages, “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.” Is there someone in your life you need to actively consider more important than yourself? How can you seek to humbly show preference to that person over your own desires or wants?

Verses for further consideration:

Psalms 25:8-9 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

1Peter 5:5-7 Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

1Corinthians 4:6-7 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Ephesians 4:1-3 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 Calvin

Humility is the supreme virtue, not only in attitude but in all of life. The Christian’s humility should shine forth into the pompous darkness of this world. It is neither our eloquence nor our brilliance that directs men to God; rather, it is God who directs men to Himself through the seeming foolishness of preaching. Consequently, humility should conquer our minds and transform our hearts, arising from our study of God’s majesty in His majestic Word.

Praying that God’s expositors, as well as those of us in the pews (or chairs), would be appropriately humbled this week as His Word goes forth.

Jonathan Edwards: – Religious Affections

An eminent saint is not apt to think himself eminent in anything; all his graces and experiences are ready to appear to him to be comparatively small; but especially his humility. There is nothing that appertains to Christian experience, and true piety, that is so much out of his sight as his humility. He is a thousand times more quick-sighted to discern his pride, than his humility: that he easily discerns, and is apt to take much notice of, but hardly discerns his humility.

Are you often aware of your own humility? Then you’re probably not humble.

Have you noticed your pride? Then you may be more humble than you realize.

Here are two signs of Christian maturity: a keen eye to discern your sins and blessed self-forgetfulness.

Question to John Piper: How do you remain humble?

I don’t. What makes you think I’m humble? A lot of people don’t think I’m humble.

I’ll take the question to mean, “How do you work at it?” And that’s a good question. I do try to work at it.

For one, I ask others to pray for me. And I pray to the Lord, “Before I give way to any kind of proud misuse of this influence for my ego, kill me. Take me before I ruin this church, this ministry, and these books. If I have to end on a note that would cast a pall over an entire life of effort, please take me before that happens.”

Prayer—pleading with God for humility—really is crucial.

Secondly, God always uses means, and the means are both providences and truth. The truth is that I’m a sinner. I wasn’t only a sinner. I am a sinner. “He who says he has no sin is deceived” (1 John 1:8). So I am a sinner. This does not take any major argument, and it doesn’t take much of a mirror. I just see it over and over again.

I said to our staff yesterday morning, when we were talking about reputations of the church, etc., to pray that we as a staff would daily be stunned by grace in our lives. Because if we aren’t amazed by grace towards us, we will be a finger-pointing church mainly.

That was the issue. Bethlehem takes a lot of stands, and therefore we are unhappy with a lot of people’s views and can be very negative. I said that the only solution there—since Paul had a lot of things he disagreed with and got upset with a lot of people—the only answer is to be more amazed that you’re saved than that they’re lost.

We should be amazed that God has treated us so generously. Labouring to see that means we must know our sin and know the cross well.

A third thing is ask people around you to be honest and tell you when you’re blowing it, whether you’re blowing it in little ways or big ways.

Now and then I’ll say to the staff,

Please. I know I have a lot of authority around here, and I’m hard to disagree with; but would you please—if you see an attitude, action, or any laziness, covetousness, greed, lust, or selfishness—would you please come to me? Email me if it’s too hard to face me, or just come and tell me.

And they do! Some of the young guys are courageous and will say, “Don’t you need to talk to that person after saying that?” And I do. I had to email somebody the other day and say that I mentioned their name in a group and said something negative when I shouldn’t have. I was joking but it really wasn’t joking. I asked for forgiveness. He emailed back and was so gracious. “Not a problem,” he said. “I’ve done the same thing and I forgive you.”

And I said to Nathan, my assistant, on the plane when I was reading this response, “How sweet it is when brothers dwell together in unity! And how horrible it is when you’re nervous at night that somebody is mad at you!”

So having people around you who exhort you and rebuke you is crucial.

Finally, you recognize that everything you do, you do in the strength that God supplies. That can be an empty phrase if you’re not really believing it. But Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. But I worked harder than any of them.” Now he could stop right here and boast in his work, but he goes on: “Nevertheless, it was not I but the grace of God that was with me.”

I think that was a very powerful reality for Paul. He could boast. In fact, he did boast about certain gospel things. But when it came to himself, he said that any good he did was done by grace. We see it also in Romans 15:18: “God forbid that I should boast except in what Christ has wrought in me to bring about the obedience of the Gentiles.”

So if I hear people saying that they were helped by a book or a conference, I tremble inside that I didn’t blow it, didn’t drop the ball, or didn’t quit. I’m saying “God, how long will you keep this going? How long will you have your hand on me? I cannot believe you are so persevering and kind with one who is so imperfect.”

Prayers for humility

1. Father, make me humble. Make me love the Lord with all my heart and love my neighbour as myself. Give me that glorious paradox: the ability to see my sin and at the same time look away from myself. And when I am tempted to posture and position as the world does, remind me that the meek will inherit the earth. AMEN

2. Lord Jesus Christ,
   I pray that you may fortify me with the grace of your Holy Spirit,
   and give your peace to my soul,
   that I may be free from all needless anxiety and worry.
   Help me to desire always that which is pleasing and acceptable to you,
   so that your will may be my will.

Grant that I may be free from unholy desires,
and that, for your love,
I may remain obscure and unknown in this world,
to be known only to you.

Do not permit me to attribute to myself
the good that you perform in me and through me,
but rather, referring all honour to you,
may I admit only to my infirmities,
so that renouncing sincerely all vainglory which comes from the world,
I may aspire to that true and lasting glory that comes from you. AMEN – Frances Cabrini

3. John Newton, Great God from Thee

Great God from Thee there’s nought concealed,
Thou seest my inward frame
To Thee I always stand revealed,
Exactly as I am

Since I can hardly therefore bear,
What in myself I see
How vile and dark must I appear
Most holy God to Thee

4. Jane Austen

Father of Heaven! whose goodness has brought us in safety to the close of this day, dispose our hearts in fervent prayer.

Another day is now gone, and added to those, for which we were before accountable.

Teach us almighty Father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past.

Give us grace to endeavour after a truly Christian spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience of which our blessed Saviour has set us the highest example;
and which, while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give.

Incline us, O God, to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

We thank thee with all our hearts for every gracious dispensation, for all the blessings that have attended our lives, for every hour of safety, health and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment.

We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved;
and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.

Keep us O Heavenly Father from evil this night.

Bring us in safety to the beginning of another day and grant that we may rise again with every serious and religious feeling which now directs us.

5. Scotty Smith

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; According to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Ps. 51:1-2

Heavenly Father, this Scripture is both encouraging and convicting. Few things are as attractive as genuine humility. It’s like a five-course meal in a five-star bistro nestled in the Swiss Alps.

When someone offers a contrite heart, takes responsibility for their failure, acknowledges the impact of their choice, asks to be forgiven, and seeks to make restitution… it’s a feast of grace. No restaurant on the face of the earth that can offer a more exquisite cuisine. Yet, Lord, when it comes to asking for forgiveness, we’re often like short-order cooks in a fast-food drive through.

Too easily we say, “I’m sorry, but you took what I said all wrong.” “I’m sorry, but if you weren’t so sensitive, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.” “I’m sorry, but if you understood what my last couple of weeks were like, you’d cut me some slack.” “I’m sorry, but if you know what kind of home I grew up in you’d realize I didn’t get the ‘relationship chip.’”

Yet, we’d be hard pressed to find one instance in your Word where the phrase “I’m sorry, but” is celebrated as the vocabulary of genuine humility. Have mercy on us, Lord.

Free us from the “I’m sorry, buts.” We want to be quicker with: “Will you forgive me?” “I can see I really hurt you. What do you need from me?” “Tell me more about how my words and actions made you feel.” “I’m genuinely sorry, and I offer no qualifiers, just a sincere apology.”

Father, you show great and constant mercy to us—according to your steadfast, immeasurable, inexhaustible love. Thank you! By the power of the gospel, may it become increasingly easy for us to humble ourselves, and incredibly difficult to remain proud, excuse-making, and unbroken.

So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.

Prayer & fasting

David also provided us with something he had been taught as to how to acquire humility. Psalm 35 verse 13. “…….I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting”

The following is an extract from Wayne Gruden’s “Systematic Theology” on fasting, apologies for poor copies.